But Don’t You Need That?
At our family’s favorite barbeque restaurant
my eight year-old nephew examines
my new scar.
It juts across my neck
and a teenager yesterday at the grocery store
pointed and laughed
and called me
Frankenstein!
when she saw it.
My nephew’s not an asshole, though.
He asks:
What’d the doctor take out?
I answer:
My thyroid gland.
He asks:
What’s that do?
I explain:
You know how your dad
coaches your baseball team?
My thyroid gland
used to coach
my metabolic rate and hormones
and even told
my eyebrows how
to grow.
He looks panicked and blurts out:
But if it did all those things don’t you need that?
I lie and tell him:
Don’t worry, honey! I’ll be fine!
I’m pretty sure he believes me.
I kiss his cheek.
He’s wearing the Mariner’s cap
I gave him
for Christmas.
I ask:
How are the M’s doing this season?
He smiles
and gets excited
and tells me about his favorite pitcher
and I try not to collapse
into my irradiated
exhaustion
as we wait for our ribs
and collard greens
and banana creme pudding
—We have to get banana creme pudding, Thia Litsa!—
to arrive.
Litsa Dremousis (she/her) is the author of Altitude Sickness (Future Tense Books). Seattle Metropolitan Magazine named it one of the all-time “20 Books Every Seattleite Must Read”. The Believer, Bright Flash Literary Review, Esquire, Flare Lit Mag, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Literary Underground, McSweeney’s, Monkeybicycle, MSN, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Nylon, Paper, Paste, PEN Center USA, Pictura Journal, Poets & Writers, Publishers Weekly, The Quasar Review, The Rumpus, Salon, Shine Poetry Quarterly, Short Beasts, Slate, several anthologies, myriad other outlets, and on NPR, KUOW, and additional radio programs and podcasts.
